Billy Buckhorn and the War of Worlds, page 22
A battalion of FBI agents hunted for the cave on foot, climbing up and down the mountainous landscape on the east side of the Mississippi River. Other agents in boats ferried up and down the Mississippi River looking along its shoreline.
Nothing was found.
The closest anyone may have come to locating it was when a motorized boat operated by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife entered a river inlet just south of Fort Adams, Mississippi. They followed the inlet, which formed a narrow canyon between two ridges, for about a half mile until it dead-ended.
They abandoned the search when they realized the area was just across the state line in Mississippi and not Louisiana. It was outside their jurisdiction, and they didn’t think to call a Mississippi state agency to follow up.
On the day after Thunder Child’s gathering at the amphitheater, Swimmer and Little Shield gave the full Underworld Takeover Prevention Team—or UTPT for short—a report on their failed search efforts.
“Your search may have failed because your crew doesn’t include someone with the necessary sensitivities,” Thunder Child said.
“What you might call a specialized superpower,” Lisa chimed in.
“All right,” Swimmer replied. “Who and what are you talking about?”
“We’re talking about this young man right here,” Cecil answered, indicating Chigger. “His superpower is basically an acute ability to perceive the presence of Underworld energies.”
“No offense, but I doubt anyone has that ability,” Jerry replied.
Swimmer’s own investigative partner disagreed. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve personally witnessed enough proof from these people to believe anything and everything they tell me,” Raelynn said angrily. “So let’s hear what they have to say now.”
Having been effectively chastised, Swimmer’s tone mellowed. “Okay, what are you suggesting?” he asked the team.
“We’re suggesting you take Chigger—”
“I now prefer to be called the Muskrat,” Chigger said in a serious tone.
“I thought you said you were kidding,” Lisa said.
“I guess I really wasn’t.”
Thunder Child revised what he’d planned to say. “I’m suggesting you go back to the Three Rivers area and take the Muskrat with you. And follow his lead. He’ll eventually find that cave because of the negative Underworld forces concentrated there.”
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Raelynn said, daring her partner to disagree.
Swimmer looked at the Muskrat. “Will your parents even allow you to go back down there? After what happened before?”
“They’ve completely changed their minds about me being involved with Billy and the whole Underworld takeover prevention stuff,” Chigger said. “They’ve seen the light.”
The FBI agent carefully considered what he’d say next before speaking.
“Well, I can’t just snap my fingers and make a new search happen,” Swimmer said finally. “I have to get new approvals from higher-ups in the FBI, and they have to get approvals to expend more resources. You know, the whole red tape thing.”
“Whatever,” Raelynn and Lisa said simultaneously and smiled at each other.
“Just get it done,” Raelynn said, looking at Jerry as she rose from her seat. “I hope we have better news to share the next time we see you,” she told the team in a pleasant tone of voice as she headed for the Buckhorn’s front door.
“Me too,” Jerry said and excused himself to follow his partner.
During the next few days, Thunder Child continued to feel overwhelmed as he faced the impending calamities without the support he’d expected. He needed spirit warriors by his side in the coming conflicts, but how would he get them? Where was the outpouring of miraculous supernatural help that was supposed to come? Why had his grandparents and Morningstar abandoned him in this approaching hour of great need?
Those were the questions and doubts that plagued the sixteen-year-old. He drove out to Lake Tenkiller just before sunset for some time alone to think. Then he remembered he wasn’t completely alone.
“Just me and my shadow strolling down the avenue,” he said aloud as he paced along the shore, remembering a very old song his grandpa Wesley used to sing from time to time.
The rains that had been falling since the first day of spring had ended, and the lake’s water level was noticeably higher. The overly soaked ground nearby was like mud soup, and so he stayed on the pavement as he strolled.
He stopped momentarily to gaze at the cement boat ramp he’d used many times over the years to launch fishing expeditions with Grandpa, or Chigger, or both. Orange rays of sunlight streaked across the Oklahoma sky before withdrawing and fading with the disappearing sun in the west.
In the growing darkness, Thunder Child decided to take a few steps onto the angled boat ramp. During the past couple of days, the sun had returned to the sky, and sunsets were a welcome change after more than a month of cloudiness.
He reached down and touched the concrete surface of the ramp. It was still warm to the touch, having basked in the day’s sunlight for several hours. Thinking the warmth would feel good on his back, he lay down on the upper part of the ramp. It was dry, and he knew no one would be launching a boat at that hour. Cradling his head in the crook of his arm, he gazed upward as the stars began their nightly display.
The Path of Souls—better known to most as the Milky Way— became brighter and brighter with each passing minute. His mind drifted back to a night at the end of last summer when he and Chigger had done a little night fishing.
Life was so simple then, before the lightning strike changed everything.
As the last remnant of western light disappeared and the field of stars began to brightly shine, the teen reached up and touched the side of his neck where electricity from the stormy sky had left its weblike scar.
“What was it your grandpa Wesley used to call the stars?” a voice in the darkness asked.
“Campfires of the ancestors,” Thunder Child replied without thinking.
His mind suddenly snapped to attention.
“Wait. Who said that?”
Thunder Child looked around. No one was in sight. But then a shimmering apparition began forming out over the water. As the vision developed, Thunder Child saw a circle of seven traditionally dressed Native men and women facing him.
The man closest to him spoke. “We’re here to offer you at least some guidance,” he said.
Thunder Child wasn’t sure who these spirits were, only that they weren’t the ancestor spirits who spoke to the Intertribal Medicine Council. This group of elders only numbered seven, while the ancestors that interacted with the council numbered thirteen.
“This is the Circle of Prophets,” the spokesman said. “Though from different tribes and different eras of history, we tried to save our people from the onslaught of foreigners who destroyed our way of life. We continue to guide our people as needed when possible.”
Having seen old photos of some of those historical Native prophets, Thunder Child surveyed the circle. He recognized Wovoka, the Paiute holy man who’d introduced the ghost dance, and Black Elk, the Lakota holy man whose visions had been shared with the world. The others weren’t familiar.
“I am known as Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet,” the spokesman said.
“Very nice to meet you,” said Thunder Child. “I used to be Billy Buckhorn, but now I’m known as—”
“We know who you are,” the prophet said. “That’s why we’ve come bearing a message.”
“A message? I could use a good message about now.”
“Morningstar has been very busy, as have your grandparents,” the prophet said. “Don’t judge them too harshly, and don’t sit around waiting for them to answer your every question. When in doubt, rely on yourself.”
“I guess I have been whining and complaining a little.”
“Also, I want to introduce you to one of the ancestors whose campfires you see up there in the sky every night.”
That piqued Thunder Child’s interest. “Who is it?” he wanted to know. “Is it someone who’ll help us defeat the Underworld?”
“Possibly. If anyone from the past could help, it would be him. He knows all the spirit warriors, the Native American warriors from the past. But I need to warn you. He still needs some convincing, and that’ll be part of your job when you meet him.”
The floating image of the prophet circle flickered and dimmed a little.
“If you know Native American history, you’ll be familiar with my brother, Tecumseh, the Shawnee warrior who tried to unite the tribes against a common American military foe.”
“In the end, he failed, didn’t he?” Thunder Child said. “Or am I missing something?”
“Yes, his earthly life concluded before his dream was realized,” the prophet replied. “But lately his deep sense of disappointment over that failure has returned.”
“I think I could work with that, use it as a discussion starter.”
“Good,” the apparition said, continuing to fade. “He might agree to meet you up at your out-of-body dome.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“If you forget everything else I’ve said, remember who I told you to rely on.”
“When in doubt, rely on myself,” Thunder Child said.
“That means all the multiple dimensions of yourself that exist in multiple time frames.”
The apparition disappeared, leaving the teen to wonder just what the Shawnee Prophet was getting at. He looked up at the velvet black sky filled with distant twinkling lights and mentally expressed his gratitude to the Circle of Prophets, hoping to see them again in the future.
As Thunder Child continued to prepare for the imminent Underworld uprising, two secretive allied groups had been at work busily preparing to execute that uprising. The entire endeavor depended on a large and unusual energy shift known as the Thinning of the Veil, or simply the Grand Thinning.
The veil could be described in many ways: the space between the natural and the supernatural worlds, the space between the seen and the unseen, the barrier between the living and the dead.
In normal times, a minor thinning of the veil took place each year during the overnight transition from October 31 to November 1, the time of Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, as it was originally known. In Mexico and Central America, it was thought of as the Day of the Dead.
But the upcoming Thinning of the Veil was very special, occurring only once in every Long Count of 5,125 years, according to the way the Maya tracked time. Therefore, only communities that had maintained and passed down their ancient traditions even knew of this phenomenon or when it would come around again. That was one of the things the Maya calendar did very well—if you knew how to read it.
So, behind the scenes and mostly out of sight, the Owl Clan and the Society of Serpents had been honing their magical skills, practicing their dark arts, and restocking their inventories of herbs and potions. Cosmic clocks, ancient manuscripts, and signs in the night sky all pointed to the first of May as the start date for this uncommon phenomenon.
n many cultures for a time, May Day, the first day of the month of May, was a date to celebrate the coming of summer. Festivals, flowers, dances, and multicolored streamers marked the day as the final defeat of winter.
But among many European practitioners of darker traditions, May Day was known as the “witches’ sabbath,” a time for worshipping the Devil and his demons. The cosmic timetables of the Owl Clan and the Snake Cult agreed, and now the long-awaited supernatural window had arrived.
On May 1, at precisely 12:01 a.m., the incantations began. Having gathered in one secret underground location, the Indigenous sorcerers and conjurers were ready to carry out their coordinated plans.
“Owl Clan, activate your mirrors,” Thomas Two Bears commanded.
Eleven of the thirteen Night Seers, seated in a circle inside the entrance to Mammoth Cave, initiated the spells that brought their individual Aztec mirrors to life. They executed their duties by the dim light provided by small battery-powered LED lamps.
Just as Two Bears had predicted, flooding from the massive rainstorms had closed Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave for months. It was the perfect location, chosen months ago for this precise day and time. This, the largest network of caves in North America, was the perfect location for conjuring the banished beasts from their abode in Level Eight of the Underworld.
“Let the conjuring begin!” Two Bears announced, and each Night Seer commenced with the specific spell he or she had learned and practiced. Casting their spells through Aztec mirrors amplified their effectiveness and increased the speed of the results.
Two of the thirteen Night Seers, however, were not present. Eastern Cherokee Amos Yonaguska had failed to answer any of Two Bears’s calls in the last few days. And the news of Willy James’s death had only recently reached the Owl Clan leader.
Their absence was troublesome to Thomas because it meant the group’s powers would be diminished. Despite this setback, Two Bears felt a sense of pride at what he was now accomplishing. It brought to mind an argument about the “Thinning Time” he’d had decades ago with former Owl Clan leader Benjamin Blacksnake when that Cherokee sorcerer was still alive.
“That’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard,” the elderly Blacksnake had ranted. “Mammoth Cave is one of the busiest tourist spots in the nation, and you’ll never be able to get the park shut down long enough to hold the conjuring!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Benjamin,” Two Bears countered. “When we execute our massive changes to weather patterns, that will no longer be a problem. The ongoing rain will flood out the cave and force park personnel to close it. There’ll be no visitors for weeks.”
“No Night Seer has ever been able to control the weather at such a large scale,” the famous Raven Stalker replied. “It can’t be done.”
“But the unified effort of all thirteen Night Seers can do it,” the younger conjurer proposed. “I believe we can achieve it if we synchronize our spells, just as I believe we can conjure all the beasts ever known in tribal cultures when the Thinning Time arrives.”
“That idea is no good either,” Blacksnake snarled. “It’s hard enough to conjure one beast from one tribal region at a time. Forget trying to conjure all the banished beasts known to all the tribes. The spells aren’t strong enough to cover the whole country!”
Debates like those raged between the two Night Seers for years—that is, until Two Bears’s powers eclipsed those of Blacksnake’s. That was when the Cheyenne medicine man cast an old tribal destruction spell on the Cherokee man, sending him down to the Shadow Zone. Blacksnake had always erroneously blamed fellow Cherokees for his demise.
“It seems to be working!” the Coast Salish Night Seer exclaimed, bringing Two Bears back from his memories of the past. “I can feel the old Bakwas creature emerging from the Northwest area where my people are from.”
“Ehpayva!” Two Bears shouted in his Cheyenne tongue. “It is good! It has begun!”
The secret order of Native dark magicians known as the Owl Clan had for decades collected and stored the legends and tales from tribes across the nation. Among those could be found multiple versions of accounts of a variety of dangerous creatures that had threatened Native communities since ancient times.
Accompanying these stories were a variety of tales that told of the times when the beasts were destroyed or banished by the Upperworld’s Hero Twins to make the Middleworld safe for human habitation.
So now, during the Grand Thinning, not only would the creatures pictured by Mound Builders long ago come forth, but so would all the horrifying beasts ever known by any of North America’s tribes. This time the creatures would appear in the Middleworld to strike terror in the hearts of everyone.
And that thought pleased Thomas Two Bears immensely.
“When the conjuring is complete, we’ll all head to Cahokia for a grand rendezvous with our allies, the Society of Serpents,” he said. “Be sure to wear your Night Seer pendants so they can recognize you.”
The Owls continued their work, satisfied that their magical efforts were successful.
Six hundred miles southwest of Mammoth, the nine members of the Serpent Society had initiated their complementary set of serpentine conjurations and concoctions. These dark magic crafters were concentrated in one highly secret underground location, the hidden and forgotten old cavern complex across the river from the Three Rivers compound.
Informed by the traditions and manuscripts of tribal magicians south of the border, their efforts were producing distinctly different results. Eight of the nine Serpents focused on calling forth the eight Horned Serpents—the Uktenas—while Snake-Eye worked on summoning the legendary and feared Winged One himself from the lowest level.
Additionally, Coyotl, the second-in-command, monitored Blacksnake’s work to manifest certain residents of the Shadow Zone. The Aztec hoped the newly rediscovered reembodiment spell—which the Cherokee sorcerer would activate from his Underworld location—would do the trick.
Coyotl’s recent studies had taught him a lot about this ancient spell. The reentry point into the land of the living didn’t require the use of caves as portals. Instead, the souls of the dead would reenter the Middleworld using their own physical remains wherever they lay buried. In other words, cemeteries. The bones would become interdimensional stepping stones, allowing souls to burst forth from denser regions.
As they worked in the hidden Louisiana cave, Serpent Society members began posing questions they’d wanted to ask their leader for quite a while. And for the first time, Snake-Eye seemed to offer concrete answers.
“There are a couple things I have to warn you about, even though you may have figured these out on your own,” he said to the group. “If you are killed or die from disease, your spells are automatically canceled. That means the Uktena you’ve conjured will cease to exist.”
